‘Oh, of course! Oh, how nice to live next to all that music . . . oh.’
He saw her face.
‘Well, you get out to work, don’t you?’
‘Um . . . I work from home.’
‘Oh. Oh.’ He smiled. ‘Well, good luck. You might learn a lot.’
From the open door came the noise of very small fingers doing their best to find middle C.
‘Uh-huh,’ said Marisa.
Huckle’s phone rang again and with an apologetic grin he moved across the way to take the call.
Marisa felt rather proud of herself for at least managing that much of a conversation. Before she could think better of it, she quickly stuck the note in the little ornate postbox on the porch, then disappeared inside.
Then she immediately changed her mind and wanted to go outside again and retrieve it but she couldn’t because Huckle was there and instead she decided that throwing herself into work was probably a good way not to have to think about what she’d just done. She then went and redid the entirety of the next year’s budget, saving the department about five per cent, as it happened, and got so thoroughly engrossed, and was listening to Biffy Clyro so loudly through her headphones that she completely missed the knocking on her door the first time. She heard it the second.
Chapter Eighteen
Oh God. She was going to get murdered. The children must have left their lesson everyone else must have gone. She was completely alone. She glanced out to sea. The sky had clouded over; everything looked heavy and grey.
Perhaps she could pretend she wasn’t in.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Oh God, how would that even work? She couldn’t do that.
She sighed. She knew the note had been a bad idea. He was going to be furious. This was awful. Everything was awful. Her heart was racing. Maybe she could go and hide in the bathroom again.
But she couldn’t hide for ever.
Maybe she could.
No. No she couldn’t.
‘Hello?! Hello?!’
Oh crap. Crap crap crap. The worst had happened. There was a pause.
She took off her headphones and stepped forward, swallowing loudly, terrified.
The door swung open. Marisa braced herself, ready for someone yelling at her.
He loomed, the size of the doorframe, his face beneath the beard – he had a strong aquiline nose and Asiatic brown eyes framed with very dark eyebrows, which wasn’t how she normally thought of Russian people looking at all: she thought they were blond and blue-eyed. Oh goodness. How cross was he going to be?
But instead, he looked delighted.
‘AHA! HELLO!’ he roared. She felt trembly.
‘I HAVE PERSON NEXT DOOR!’
Well, that cleared up whether or not he knew the word neighbour.
‘I didn’t not know I was havink person next door! You arrive today?’
‘Actually, I’ve been here for three weeks.’
His face looked confused.
‘Three weeks? But I too have been here three weeks.’
He obviously didn’t remember her from the bakery.
‘But I do not see you come out or come in.’
She half-smiled and didn’t answer, not wanting to admit that she hadn’t been out once.
‘You leave me note!’
He held it out to her, smiling, and indicated that she take it.
‘Thank you for note!’
‘Um . . .’
He stood back.
‘Can you read note to me, please?’
There was a long pause. Marisa felt her insides turn cold.
‘I can . . . you don’t read English?’
‘I do! Very much! But. Only when it is in typink. Yes.’
Marisa glanced down at her loopy calligraphic handwriting. She saw the problem.
‘Ah.’
The temptation was huge: to tell him it was a note just to say hello. As if reading her thoughts he said, with a broad grin, ‘You send me note sayink hello!’
She blinked. It was now or never. He didn’t seem threatening, despite his size.
‘Um . . .’
His face looked concerned suddenly. His thick eyebrows furrowed. Despite the beard, it was a very expressive face. She doubted he was much use in a game of poker.
Marisa took a deep breath and found her courage.
‘Actually, I was asking . . . do you need to play music so much all the time . . . all day and at night?’
Marisa burbled the last words and mumbled them almost under her breath, half-hoping he wouldn’t understand her, but he did.
‘I play music at night?’ he said wonderingly, almost as if this came as news to him.
‘Uh, and the walls are very thin?’
He frowned even more, but didn’t say anything for a long time. It looked like he was going over the problem in his head.
Finally he looked at her in confusion.
‘You don’t like music?’
Marisa bit her tongue so she didn’t mention that what she was hearing at night wasn’t music.
‘But it’s all the time,’ she offered finally.
‘But it is mine job. My job,’ he corrected himself.
‘In the daytime,’ she said.
‘You not have job?’
‘I do. I do it here.’
‘But I do mine there.’
They seemed to be at something of an impasse.
‘And at night . . . it’s just horrible.’
Something contorted slightly in his face then and she realised suddenly she’d hurt him deeply.
‘I mean, it’s just so loud. And I can hear everything.’
‘But I cannot hear you at all! I do not know you are here.’
‘Because I am a quiet person.’
‘Well, the world has quiet people and noisy people maybe.’ ‘Maybe it does.’
He peered past her into the pristine little house.
‘You have same house. Just you?’
‘Um . . .’
Marisa was tempted to lie just in case.
‘You have whole house. For you. Overlooking sea. Is beautiful, no?’
‘Yes.’
‘Beautiful house just for you. In beautiful place. Filled with good thinks. With good people. Safe. Is happy place, no?’
Marisa didn’t feel in the least happy but she shrugged.
‘And you find you haff piano to make you sad. I see. I suppose you haff find something make you sad.’
‘I’m just . . . trying to work . . .’
He frowned as if completely confused. It was hard to tell whether he was angry or whether it was just the natural timbre of his voice that made him sound very angry indeed.
‘I do not like notes. You send notes complaining about music. Where I come from people used to send notes. They send secret notes. To the police about the people who is livink next door.’
She stared at him, completely horrified that he would think this about her. He turned, slowly, and descended the staircase. Halfway down he turned back and held out his hand.
‘I do not want this note,’ he said stiffly. ‘In the daytime there will be music. Is job. At night-time you must haff what you want. I see.’
He looked at it dismissively.
‘Although your handwriting is very beautiful.’
It was. It was part of her job. He was holding it out.
He didn’t apologise for his angry tone. She didn’t put her hand out for the note; couldn’t reach out of her own front door. He proffered it again, his eyebrows twitching in confusion, but she did nothing.